Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 07:23, 13 May 2020

Plandemic is a 26-minute conspiracy theory video released in May 2020 that promotes a variety of falsehoods and misinformation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. The film was produced by Mikki Willis's California-based production company Elevate, which has produced other conspiracist videos in the past. The producers of the video state that it is a trailer for an upcoming film to be released in Summer 2020. Starring in the video is discredited former medical researcher turned anti-vaccination activist Judy Mikovits.

Promoted by conspiracy theorists, the video spread rapidly and virally on social media, garnering millions of views, making it "one of the most widespread pieces of coronavirus misinformation." The video was removed by various platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, and Twitter, over its misleading content and promotion of false information.

Science magazine released an editorial piece fact-checking the video and detailing its inaccuracies and misleading claims.

Synopsis

The video promotes the conspiracist claim that vaccines are "a money-making enterprise that causes medical harm". It takes the form of an interview between Willis and Mikovits in which Mikovits makes numerous unsupported or false claims around coronavirus, and her own controversial history. Fact-checker PolitiFact highlighted eight false or misleading claims made in the video, including:

• That Mikovits was held in jail without charge. Mikovits was briefly held on remand after an accusation of theft from her former employer, the Whittemore Peterson Institute, but charges were dropped. There is no evidence to support her claim that notebooks removed from the Institute were "planted" or that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and its director Anthony Fauci bribed investigators. When asked both Mikovits and Willis admitted that it was an error to say she had not been charged and in fact she had meant to say that the charges were dropped, Mikovits saying that "I've been confused for a decade," and that in future she would try to be more clear when she talks about the criminal charge: "I'll try to learn to say it differently,"
• That the virus was manipulated. An article in Nature analyses the likely origins and finds that "Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus".
• That the virus occurred from SARS-1 within a decade and that this is inconsistent with natural causes. This is incorrect: SARS-CoV-2 is similar but not directly descended from SARS-CoV (SARS-1), with only 79% genetic similarity.
• That hospitals receive "$13,000 from Medicare if you call it COVID-19" when a patient dies. This claim, which had previously been promoted by The American Spectator and WorldNetDaily, was rated "half true" by PolitiFact and Snopes: payments are made but the amount is open to dispute and there is no evidence that this influences diagnosis and in fact the evidence suggests that COVID-19 is, if anything, under-diagnosed.
• That hydroxychloroquine is 'effective against these families of viruses'. This claim originates with work by Didier Raoult, which has subsequently received a "statement of concern" from the editors of the journal in which it was published. An NIH study failed to show any benefit and an increased risk of cardiac death from taking hydroxychloroquine.
• That flu vaccines increase the chance of contracting COVID-19 by 36%. This claim is false. The claim misinterprets a disputed paper which studied the 2017—2018 influenza season, predating the COVID-19 pandemic. The claim that the flu vaccine increases the chance of contracting COVID-19 does not appear in the original paper at all. Wolff wrote coronavirus cases increased from 5.8% (non vaccinated) to 7.8% (vaccinated) with odds ratio of 1.36 (1.14, 1.63) 95% confidence interval and the paper's highlight said, "Vaccinated personnel did not have significant odds of respiratory illnesses." The paper was referring to seasonal coronaviruses (common cold), but COVID-19 was added by the website disabledveterans.org.
• That "if you've ever had a flu vaccine, you were injected with coronaviruses". This has also been debunked, the flu shot contains no coronaviruses.
• That "wearing the mask literally activates your own virus. You're getting sick from your own reactivated coronavirus expressions." This claim is unsupported by evidence. Masks prevent airborne transmission of the virus especially during the asymptomatic period (up to 14 days) when carriers may not even be aware they have the disease.

Mikovits also alludes to a number of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories regarding Bill Gates and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, notably the idea that Gates is implicated in creating the disease in order to profit from an eventual vaccine, and makes false and unsupported claims that beaches should remain open as "healing microbes in the saltwater" and "sequences" in the sand can "protect against the coronavirus". The video claims that the numbers of COVID-19 deaths are purposely being misreported in an effort to control people.

Willis' previous credits include numerous conspiracy theorist videos as well as cinematography on Neurons to Nirvana, a film that makes therapeutic claims about psychedelic drugs.

Reception

Scientists, medical doctors and public health experts condemned the film for promoting misinformation and "a hodgepodge of conspiracy theories". Physician and comedian Zubin Damania wrote in his commentary, "Don't waste your time watching it. Don't waste your time sharing it. Don't waste your time talking about it. I can’t believe I’m wasting my time doing this. But I just want to stop getting messages about it."

Accelerated Urgent Care, whose discredited press conference statements by co-owners Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi were utilized in the video, released an official statement disagreeing with the video's agenda and claiming that the company never gave permission to Willis for utilizing their footage.

Science journalist Tara Haelle described the film as propaganda, and posited that the film "has been extremely successful at promoting misinformation for three reasons": (1) it "taps into people's uncertainty, anxiety and need for answers"; (2) it "is packaged very professionally and uses common conventions people already associate with factual documentaries"; and (3) it effectively exploits various methods of persuasion, including the use of a seemingly trustworthy and sympathetic narrator, appeals to emotion, the Gish gallop, and "sciencey" images. Willis stated that propaganda was a fair description of the film.

See also

• Vaxxed, a 2016 pseudoscientific American documentary film alleging a cover-up by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of a discredited link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

References

1. ^ Andrews, Travis M (May 7, 2020). "Facebook and other companies are removing viral 'Plandemic' conspiracy video". Washington Post.
2. ^ Daniel Funke (May 8, 2020). "Fact-checking 'Plandemic': A documentary full of false conspiracy theories about the coronavirus". PolitiFact.
3. https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/93597a/plandemic-viral-nonsense-judi-mikovits-plague-of-corruption
4. Greg Pickel (2020-05-07). "Who is Judy Mikovits, and what does she have to do with Anthony Fauci and the coronavirus?". PennLive.com. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
5. ^ Taylor Hatmaker (May 7, 2020). "Platforms scramble as 'Plandemic' conspiracy video spreads misinformation like wildfire". TechCrunch.
6. ^ Megan Graham (May 7, 2020). "Facebook, YouTube and other platforms are struggling to remove new pandemic conspiracy video". CNBC.
7. ^ Brandy Zadrozny & Ben Collins (May 7, 2020). "As '#Plandemic' goes viral, those targeted by discredited scientist's crusade warn of 'dangerous' claims". NBC News.
8. Enserink, Martin; Cohen, Jon (2020-05-08). "Fact-checking Judy Mikovits, the controversial virologist attacking Anthony Fauci in a viral conspiracy video". Science magazine. Retrieved 2020-05-12.
9. ^ Allen, Marshall (9 May 2020). "I'm an Investigative Journalist. These Are the Questions I Asked…". ProPublica. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
10. Andersen, Kristian G.; Rambaut, Andrew; Lipkin, W. Ian; Holmes, Edward C.; Garry, Robert F. (April 2020). "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2". Nature Medicine. 26 (4): 450–452. doi:10.1038/s41591-020-0820-9. ISSN 1546-170X. PMC 7095063. PMID 32284615.
11. Lu, Roujian; Zhao, Xiang; Li, Juan; Niu, Peihua; Yang, Bo; Wu, Honglong; Wang, Wenling; Song, Hao; Huang, Baoying; Zhu, Na; Bi, Yuhai (2020-02-22). "Genomic characterisation and epidemiology of 2019 novel coronavirus: implications for virus origins and receptor binding". The Lancet. 395 (10224): 565–574. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30251-8. ISSN 0140-6736. PMC 7159086. PMID 32007145.
12. Rogers, Michelle. "Fact check: Hospitals get paid more if patients listed as COVID-19, on ventilators". Retrieved 2020-05-08.
13. Tom Kertscher (April 21, 2020). "Fact-check: Hospitals and COVID-19 payments". PolitiFact.
14. "Is Medicare Paying Hospitals $13K for Patients Diagnosed with COVID-19, $39K for Those on Ventilators?". Snopes.com. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
15. Richardson, Ian. "Fact check: Is US coronavirus death toll inflated? Experts agree it's likely the opposite". Retrieved 2020-05-08.
16. "Hydroxychloroquine-COVID-19 study did not meet publishing society's "expected standard"". retractionwatch.com. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
17. "Journal Publisher Concerned over Hydroxychloroquine Study". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
18. "NIH Panel Recommends Against Drug Combination Promoted By Trump For COVID-19". Retrieved 2020-05-08.
19. Fichera, Angelo (2020-04-27). "No Evidence That Flu Shot Increases Risk of COVID-19". FactCheck.org. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
20. ^ "Claim that flu vaccine increases coronavirus infection is unsupported, misinterprets scientific studies". Health Feedback. 2020-03-30. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
21. Wolff, Greg G. (2020-01-10). "Influenza vaccination and respiratory virus interference among Department of Defense personnel during the 2017–2018 influenza season". Vaccine. 38 (2): 350–354. doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2019.10.005. ISSN 0264-410X.
22. Richardson, Ian. "Fact check: Getting flu shot doesn't make you more (or less) likely to get the coronavirus". Retrieved 2020-05-08.
23. "False claim: The flu vaccine causes the new coronavirus". Reuters. 2020-04-15. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
24. CDC (2020-04-28). "Key Facts About Seasonal Flu Vaccine". Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
25. Desai, Angel N.; Aronoff, David M. (2020-04-17). "Masks and Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)". JAMA. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.6437. PMID 32301960.
26. "Coronavirus: 'Plandemic' virus conspiracy video spreads across social media". BBC. May 8, 2020. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
27. Graham, Megan (2020-05-07). "Facebook, YouTube and other platforms are struggling to remove new pandemic conspiracy video". CNBC. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
28. "Social media used to spread, create COVID-19 falsehoods". Harvard Gazette. 2020-05-08. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
29. Sheperd, Marshall. "Why People Cling to Conspiracy Theories Like 'Plandemic'". www.forbes.com. Forbes. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
30. "Facebook and Youtube are rushing to delete "Plandemic", a conspiracy-laden video". www.technologyreviews.com. MIT Technology Reviews. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
31. "ACEP-AAEM Joint Statement on Physician Misinformation". www.acep.org. Retrieved 2020-05-12.
32. "Artin Massihi M.D. ✝️ on Instagram: "Public Statement from Dr Erickson and Myself"". Instagram. Retrieved 2020-05-12.
33. Haelle, Tara (May 8, 2020). "Why It's Important To Push Back On 'Plandemic'—And How To Do It". Forbes.

External links

• Official website

• Medical-related conspiracy theories
• 2020s YouTube videos
• Anti-vaccination media
• Disinformation operations
• Documentary films about conspiracy theories
• English-language films
• Conspiracy theorists
• Fake news
• Health fraud
• Misinformation
• American propaganda films